


(Take Me Back) To the Night We Met

by motor_mouse



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-21 23:29:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15568728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/motor_mouse/pseuds/motor_mouse
Summary: The first thing that Fjord notices when he opens up the door to his apartment is the small stack of luggage and a birdcage that are resting in the entryway hall.





	(Take Me Back) To the Night We Met

**Author's Note:**

> This fic reads in reverse. 
> 
> The title is a song by Lord Huron called "The Night We Met."  
> You should definitely listen to it if you haven't before.

** None **

The first thing that Fjord notices when he opens up the door to his apartment is the small stack of luggage and a birdcage that are resting in the entryway hall. He feels a nervousness creep across his skin and he steps inside.

“Jes?” He calls out, the living room and kitchen are both empty.

He moves to the door of their bedroom and takes a deep breath before opening it. She’s sitting on the end of their bed, head bowed and eyes seemingly fixed on the object in her hand- a drawing in a frame.

He can tell, even from a distance, that she’s been crying.

“Hey, Jes, what’s going on?” He moves closer and she doesn’t move, and for a minute it’s as if she doesn’t even realize that he is there.

But then she speaks, saying two words that cause his heart to crack.

“I’m leaving.” She whispers, bringing up a hand to wipe at her eyes.

His brain short circuits and it takes a moment for her words to register.

“Wait- what- no- why?” His words come out clumsy, tumbling out in a jumble that is barely intelligible.

She looks at him, tears in her eyes, and he feels like he might throw up. She looks _so_ sad.

“I can’t do this anymore. It’s not…” She trails off and he moves to sit on the bed next to her, his hand reaching for hers.

She pulls her hand away and it makes his heart ache.

“I’m confused, what’s going on Jester?” He tries to keep his voice strong but it falters anyway.

“This isn’t fair,” She starts again. “I- you keep things from me. Big, important things. I tell you everything about me, but I know almost nothing about you.”

Fjord lets out a long deflating breath. She’s not wrong, and they’ve had plenty of arguments about it in the past few weeks. He keeps things from her for a good reason, though. Everything he doesn’t say is to keep her safe. He wishes that he could just make her understand.

“I’m sorry, Jes, I really am. I don’t know what else to say.”

“Say anything!” Her voice grows louder before she takes a breath and her voice comes out pleading. “Tell me something? Tell me where you disappear to at odd hours day and night. Tell me why you come home looking like you’ve been beat to hell. Tell me something, anything, about what you do for a living.”

Fjord signs and drags his hand down his face, fighting an internal battle. He wants to tell her everything. He wants her to know all of him. But it’s not safe for her to know what he does and where he goes. He knows that she would try to stop him and that’s not something he could do even if he wanted to.

“I can’t,” he finally says, “I’m so sorry Jester, I just can’t.”

Her face crumbles despite her best efforts, and she stands up.

“I’m sorry, Fjord. I love you, I just can’t do this anymore.”

“Please, please stay.” He begs and tears roll down her cheeks. Her lip quivers and she shakes her head.

“Goodbye.” She slides the picture she had been holding into his hands, turns and walks away, leaving a devastated Fjord behind her.

 

 

** Some **

He wakes up with a gasp, sitting upright in bed, trying desperately to gulp down some air.

He can’t breathe. His lungs are on fire. He feels like they’re full of lava.

“Fjord? What’s wrong?” He hears Jester mumble sleepily beside him. When he doesn’t answer and just keeps gasping and coughing she sits up, one hand gripping his arm and the other patting his back gently.

“Can’t,” he gasps out, coughing into his hand, which is now very wet, “Breathe.”

“What is it? What can I do?” Jester jumps out of their bed and moves to the light switch. When the light blinks on he hears her sharp intake of breath and he tries to get his eyes to focus on her. “You’re bleeding!” She shouts, and Fjord pulls his hand from his mouth, staring down at the bright red blood that covers his hand.

“Oh.” He gets out before the coughing overtakes him again.

His vision starts to go dark. Something is definitely not right. His whole body aches.

The last thing he hears before the world goes black is the sound of a telephone beeping as Jester frantically dials 911.

 

When he wakes up, he’s in the hospital. Jester’s hand is gripping his tightly and she has her head resting on the bed by his thigh.

His throat is sore, his lungs burn, and he feels like someone is sitting on his chest.

He moves to sit up and it jostles Jester awake. Her eyes immediately land on his face and she seems to let out a sigh of relief.

“You’re finally awake.” She slowly stands and leans forward, kissing his forehead. “I’ll be right back.” With that she rushes out of the room and a few minutes later she returns with a doctor following close behind her.

“Good morning sleeping beauty.” The doctor jokes, before reaching out a hand to introduce himself.

He explains that Fjord had some internal bleeding caused by what appears to be heavy and repeated impact to the torso. He questions Fjord about this, and he plays dumb.

“It looks to be like you got yourself hit by a car.” The doctor says and Fjord thinks, _not too far off._

He ends up needing to stay at the hospital for another night, and Jester very vocally refuses to leave his side.

She questions him, repeatedly, about how he got the bruises littered across his body.

He dodges the questions with mostly half-truths and only a few outright falsities.

They both know that he’s lying.

For the first time since he met her, he feels a wedge form between them, and for a little while, Jester refuses to meet his eyes.

 

** Most **

He gets a weird message from Jester while he’s out doing some surveillance with Beau, and he finds himself very confused.  

It’s reads,” I _have a surprise for you!”_ followed by a heart emoji, a bird emoji, and a dagger emoji.

“What’s got your face all scrunched up?” Beau asks from next to him.

He shows her the text and watches as she gets confused too.

“Um… maybe she’s got some adventurous stuff in store for you tonight? Like, introduction of feathers and knives into your sexual lives?” Beau offers.

Fjord ponders that for a moment, and his nervousness must have shown because Beau laughs at him.

“Don’t worry about it dude, she’s probably just making you a nice chicken dinner or something.”

Fjord nods along to that, and he tries to calm his racing mind.

It’s not that he’d necessarily be opposed to new bedroom activities, he just thinks that they should talk about it a bit first.

 

When he gets home later that night he learns that both of Beau’s guesses were incorrect. Standing in the living room, in the corner where his movie shelf used to be, is a bird cage.

With a bird inside of it. A real, live, black, bird.

“Good you’re home!” Jester shouts from the kitchen.

“Uh-huh. Um- Jester? What is this?” He asks as she makes her way over to him.

“Surprise!” She exclaims. “I got us a bird! Her name is Kiri.” The bird chirps out a noise that almost sounds like she is repeating, “Kiri.”

“But… why?” He asks, brow furrowing as he finally looks away from the bird and at Jester.

“So I know that we’ve been talking about getting a dog.” She starts, full of excitement, “But I met this guy today, Matt, and we started talking about animals and he said he had this bird that he needed to get rid of because she is mean to his other birds. Always stabbing them with her beak in an aggressive way. So I told him that of course we could take her!” Jester’s hands are gripped tightly around his. “So what do you think?”

“She’s a… bird.” He states, and disappointment flashes in her eyes. “I mean, she’s a very cute bird”

Jester jumps forward and kisses him with a smile.

“You’re going to _love_ her!” She pulls him reluctantly to the cage and he tries really hard not to jump when the bird flutters out and lands on his shoulder, pecking at his ear.

 

Later that night he messages Beau and he swears he can hear her laughing from across town.

She replies with, _”Man, I sure love Jester sometimes. Good luck dude.”_

 

** All **

Fjord needs a drink. It’s three in the morning, he just got through with a particularly rowdy _client_ of his boss, he’s tired and sore and he just wants to find some place to enjoy a glass of bourbon.

He finds the nearest bar and makes his way inside, not noticing that the bar was empty of customers.

“Oh! Hello?” He hears from the far side of the counter.

The woman he sees standing there is stunning. She has short dark hair that is sort of wavy and curls around her cheeks a bit. She has freckles peppered across her nose and she has bright blue eyes that contrast nicely with her tan skin.

“Hey there.” He drawls, and she smiles at him.

“I’m really sorry, sir, but we actually just closed for the evening.” He feels his cheeks heat up.

“Oh, uh, my apologies.” He tries not to stutter in his slight embarrassment, and he hopes he can summon up some of Beau’s foolish courage. “I was actually just hoping to get one drink before I turn in for the night. Is there anyway I could convince you…” He lets the question trail off, hanging in the air.

She wrinkles up her nose in thought and even taps her chin with a pen she was holding.

“Alright, one drink, what’ll it be?”

After she pours him his drink she leans against the counter across from him, a pen in one hand and a small pad of paper in the other.

“So what has you out so late?” She asks, not looking up from her paper.

“I uh… I just finished up work actually.”

“An odd time of day to finish work.” She says, but she still keeps her eyes on the paper that she’s… drawing on?

There is an awkward silence for a bit and Fjord tries to think of something to say, something charming, but everything fails him and all he can do is quietly sip his drink and watch her draw.

“Is your name Oskar?” She asks after a while and his brows furrow in confusion.

“No? Why do you ask?”

She shrugs and looks up at him.

“I don’t know, you kind of look like an Oskar to me.” She shrugs and looks back down, gnawing at her lip as she draws.

“My name is Fjord, actually. What’s yours?” She smiles, lip still caught in her teeth.

“My name is Jester.”

“Jester? I like that.” He whispers, more to himself than anything but the look on her face shows that she heard him.

Eventually his glass empties and she looks up at him, taring the paper from her notepad.

“Well Fjord, it has been fun for sure but your time is up.” She says sweetly, sliding the paper over to him.

He finds that it’s a rough ballpoint drawing of him, sitting at the bar with a very pensive look on his face.

“Wow.” Is all that comes out of his mouth and she laughs softly.

“You have a very nice face.” She states, a blush across her cheeks.

“I uh- thank you. Really. You-“ She cuts him off with a wave of her hand and escorts him to the door.

He turns to her just before he steps outside.

“Thank you. I needed that drink,” He tells her, “and I enjoyed the company.”

“You should come back again sometime.” She says with a smile. “I enjoyed this, too.”

She leans up, kisses his cheek, and gently shoves him out the door.

 

While walking home that night he thinks to himself, _I’m going to marry that girl._

**Author's Note:**

> In this I imagine that Fjord (and Beau) work as muscle for a crime family or something along those lines, and that's what he wanted to protect Jester from. 
> 
> I apologize that Jester is super OOC, I've now realized that she's really difficult for me to write. 
> 
> I also couldn't resist having "Matt" be the one to give them Kiri. 
> 
> I hope this wasn't written too sloppy- I ran out of time and wanted to post it today.


End file.
